Sylvia borin
Silhouette: Martin Bulla, based on John Cox's illustration · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The garden warbler (Sylvia borin) is a common and widespread small bird that breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to western Siberia. It is a plain, long-winged and long-tailed warbler with brown upperparts and dull white underparts; the sexes are similar and juveniles resemble the adults. Its two subspecies differ only slightly and interbreed where their ranges overlap. Due to its lack of distinguishing features, this species can be confused with a number of other unstreaked warblers. The garden warbler's rich melodic song is similar to that of the blackcap, its closest relative, which competes with it for territory when nesting in the same woodland.
The preferred breeding habitat in Eurasia is open woodland with dense low cover for nesting; despite its name, gardens are rarely occupied by this small passerine bird. The clutch of four or five blotched cream or white eggs is laid in a robust cup-shaped nest built near the ground and concealed by dense vegetation. The eggs are incubated for 11–12 days. The chicks are altricial, hatching naked and with closed eyes, and are fed by both parents. They fledge about 10 days after hatching. Only about a quarter of young birds survive their first year. The garden warbler is strongly migratory, wintering in sub-Saharan Africa. A wide range of habitats are used in Africa, but closed forest and treeless Sahel are both shunned. Insects are the main food in the breeding season, although fruit predominates when birds are fattening prior to migration, figs being a particular favourite where available. These warblers have a mixed diet of insects and fruit in their African wintering grounds.
The garden warbler is hunted by Eurasian sparrowhawks and domestic cats, and its eggs and nestlings are taken by a variety of mammalian and avian predators. It may be host to various fleas, mites and internal parasites, and it is a host of the common cuckoo, a brood parasite. The large and fairly stable numbers and huge range of the garden warbler mean that it is classed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Despite a small population decline in much of its European range, the bird's breeding distribution is expanding northwards in Scandinavia. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jerusalem | 🇮🇱 Israel | |
| 2 | Yekaterinburg | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 3 | Novosibirsk | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 4 | Helsinki | 🇫🇮 Finland | |
| 5 | Kazan | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 6 | Cologne | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 7 | Minsk | 🇧🇾 Belarus | |
| 8 | Saint Petersburg | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 9 | Stockholm | 🇸🇪 Sweden | |
| 10 | Yerevan | 🇦🇲 Armenia |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Garden Warbler sighting in Ecrins National Park on a given day, based on 14 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 47th most-seen of the 76 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and July
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Garden Warbler in Ecrins National Park on a given day, against about 10% in January–May and August–October, the lowest months. November and December have too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Garden Warbler sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 33
Of the 33 parks where we can rate Garden Warbler sightings, Ecrins National Park ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Białowieża National Park (Poland, about 20%) and Biebrza National Park (Poland, about 10%).
Same genus: Sylvia
The closest relatives of the Garden Warbler that you can see in Ecrins National Park (genus Sylvia, Sylvia Warblers) are Blackcap (about 50%) and Lesser Whitethroat (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Garden Warbler is recorded against all the birds logged in Ecrins National Park (14 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
